Monday, July 30, 2012

In Bill McKibben’s recent article
in Rolling Stone, Climate
Change’s Terrifying New Math, he identifies “the enemy” as the oil
industry. But like so many of today’s enemies, this one too is not well defined.
Whether we like it or not, the architecture of the “developed” world has been
meticulously structured around the entire population’s dependence on non-renewable
resources. We don’t just support the industry when we unconsciously flick the switch,
fly, or fill up at the pump; old-fashioned pensions are now shadowy “investment
portfolios” (beware: even “green funds” support oil companies and war
profiteers). Plastics, products shipped via plane and truck from faraway lands,
crops grown with petrochemicals…fossil fuels are everywhere, hidden in plain
sight. If we could trace our paychecks back to the source, many of us would
have to admit that our livelihoods, in one way or another, depend on the fossil
fuel industry.

So how do we fight an enemy with
whom we are so thoroughly intertwined?

First, we must accept that the
problem is a complex one, riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. YES, it is
possible to be part of the problem and part of the solution at the same time. By
cultivating awareness of all factors involved and learning to weigh the consequences
of our actions, we can begin to make choices that contribute less to the
problems and more to the solutions.

Next, we’ll need to see the
fossil fuel industry for what it really is: not as an ordinary industry, but as
an oppressive regime that has, by wielding massive power in the form of
financial capital, taken control of our government and infiltrated every facet
of our society.

Fortunately, oppressive regimes
can and have been toppled, and we can draw on historical evidence to help us in
the development of effective strategies to subvert them.

Dr. Gene
Sharp, a political scientist who has dedicated his life to the study of
non-violent resistance movements, states in his book From Dictatorship to
Democracy that:

“When one wants to bring down a dictatorship most effectively
and with the least cost then one has four immediate tasks:

Strengthen the oppressed population themselves in their
determination, self-confidence, and resistance skills

Strengthen the independent social groups and institutions of
the oppressed people

Create a powerful internal resistance force

Develop a wise grand strategic plan for liberation and
implement it skillfully.”

Additionally, Dr. Sharp recommends that we discover the
sources of the oppressors’ strengths and destabilize them. At the same time, we
must identify weakness and concentrate our attacks on “Achilles heels”. Sharp suggests
that, "Liberation
from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people’s ability to liberate
themselves."

What would it mean to “liberate ourselves” in the context of
bringing down the fossil fuel industry? Self-liberation will involve
extricating ourselves from the corrupt system to the greatest extent possible.
Personal, community, and national energy independence are not separate issues:
they are one issue with many facets, all of which can and must be addressed
simultaneously for maximum, immediate impact.

A “wise grand strategic plan for liberation” will provide the
tools the oppressed peoples will need once they have been freed. In this case,
we are going to need to develop new habits and skills that will be necessary in
a post-fossil-fuel dominated society. Beginning to develop these skills as soon
as possible will immediately begin to diminish the power of the oppressor and
empower the ones who resist, while preparing us to thrive in the future.

There has been much ado about the roll of “personal action” –
as opposed to political action – in averting ecological catastrophe. There is some
concern amongst activists, expressed both in the McKibben article and by Annie
Leonard in her new video The Story of
Change, that the public will be apt to mistake token gestures (such as
recycling and switching to high-efficiency light bulbs) for wholehearted dedication
to holistic system change. Rather than proceeding to educate eager audiences
about ways we can begin to implement more substantial kinds of changes in our
own lives and communities in addition to concerted political
action, these leaders have chosen to begin a fight against the system from the
top down instead. Meanwhile, while we wait for authority figures to
direct our efforts, our outrage and eagerness to become involved becomes
diffused.

The urgency of this situation demands that each of us take the
initiative to lead ourselves, to develop solutions that can be implemented
immediately, and fit the scale of our own lives. Why not fight the system from
the top down and the bottom up simultaneously?

The most abundant “green” technology is available to everyone
right now at zero cost: it’s our collective ability to maximize efficiency and
reduce waste. In light of the profoundly destructive effects of human activity
on our planet’s ecology, we must reevaluate what we consider to be a necessity
vs. that which we consider convenience. Reducing or eliminating consumption for
convenience, multiplied by millions, will result in an immediate, quantifiable
reduction in the demand for fossil fuels.

During WWII the U.S. and British governments initiated an
intensive and wildly successful resources conservation campaign. The public was
asked to voluntarily use less gasoline, fabric, metal, rubber, paper and other
material goods, and to grow small backyard “Victory Gardens”. “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do
Without” was the motto of the day. By becoming more self-sufficient,
the government could invest more of the country’s resources in the war effort.

Obviously, is not in the best interest of a government that is
“for the corporations, by the corporations” to ask us to consume less, in spite
of the fact that the health of the entire planet depends on it. A similar
campaign today – only this time with the purpose of investing in the peace
effort – if it is to happen at all, must come from the grassroots. It must come
from ourselves.

Perhaps prominent environmental groups hesitate to include us
because they are loath to lay even a modicum of blame for our predicament on
the very people whose support they require. But until we acknowledge our
complicity and admit that there is no one perfect solution – and most of all,
that we are in this together – any strategy that we could devise would lack the
enduring strength that could be derived from a truly inclusive movement,
founded in honesty, transparency, and collective responsibility.

By inviting us to contribute personally and directly in the
solution, our actions, however small, however symbolic, will provide us with a
sense of unity around a common purpose that has been absent from our culture for
far too long.

We can look to Dr. Sharp to help us dismantle an oppressive
regime, but unless and until we learn how to live in harmonious relationship
with one another and the earth, no solution will be permanent. For these kinds
of skills, we’ll need to draw inspiration from the wisdom of other, more earth-centered
societies, many of which are alive on this planet today.

If we’re going to lobby for better legislation, the Great
Law of the Iroquois would be an excellent place to start. “The Law of the 7
Generations” requires that all decisions be made with consideration for how our
actions would affect a person born seven generations into the future. We don’t
need a government to pass this law – we can establish it for ourselves right
now.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

PHILSOPROP*: The Homeopathic Remedies for the 5 Ills of Society is a set of elixirs for social ailments based on the premise that "like cures like"(similia similibus curentur).

Shortly after
9/11/2001 I found a bullet on the ground in NYC and began wondering if I could create a remedy for violence by making a tincture from it? The recipes for the other remedies came to me shortly thereafter:

ALIENATION: Empty (according to homeopathy, the most dilute remedies are the most potent).VIOLENCE: Dilution made from bullet soaked in distilled water.GREED: Dilution made from coins soaked in distilled water.

CONSUMERISM: Diluted drop of bottled water from Wal-Mart.

DETACHMENT: Miniscule dose of superglue (this is a "dialectic remedy", the ailment being countered by its opposite. I wonder if, like especially diluted remedies, paradoxical ones have special potency as well?).

Clearly, we have a catastrophic problem on our hands. But climate
change isn’t it. In fact, climate change isn’t a problem at all – to be
precise, climate change is merely a very acute symptom of a much, much
larger matrix of problems that, if left undiagnosed, will rapidly lead to limitless,
albeit unnecessary, suffering for every living creature on the planet.

Ironically, the climate change debate itself is an extremely potent
anesthetic for those on all sides of the argument. Pose the question to any
good scientist or well-informed environmentalist, “Is the extreme weather we’re
having this summer caused by climate change?” and we can give you only
one definitive answer: maybe. Even if we could convince the
majority of the public that all the terrifying math in the world is real…then
what?

In a culture that habitually treats symptoms without examining the
underlying causes of a disease, it’s really no wonder that even the world’s
foremost environmentalists remain fixated on the warning light while the engine
seizes. On another level, perpetual misdiagnosis of a problem gives us all a
very convenient excuse not to participate in the solution. As with the
overpopulation argument, it’s easy to understand how discussions of climate
change can so easily segue into that classic bit of cul-de-sac logic, “Well,
there’s nothing I can do about it
anyway…”

So, what is the problem,
who is to blame, and how can it be solved? To understand our current
predicament, we’ll need to back up a bit….

Slowly but surely throughout the course of history, a small faction
of power-hungry über opportunists have taken control of the main systems that
sustain our basic needs – food and fuel – and commodified them. In other words,
a few enterprising masterminds have successfully identified the most critical
things that people need to survive, and found ways to profit by controlling
them. If these influential individuals had been altruistic rather than covetous,
they might have developed and implemented what are known as “appropriate
technologies” – solutions that are adapted to conditions, materials, and
labor at hand, and designed to maximize efficiency and minimize cost, waste,
and environmental impact. As we know, when altruistic geniuses such as
Buckminster Fuller and Nikola Tesla do come along, the über opportunists
have their ways of discrediting, undermining, and negating their ideas.

The über opportunists are also über marketing specialists. They have
manufactured needs for their products and planned for their obsolescence. They
have cornered markets, so that the very same company that sells electricity
sells products that use electricity – the less efficient the product, the more
money the company makes. The sicker we are, the more the pill-makers earn.
Under the guise of feeding the world, the chemical industry thrives while small
farmers perish. The opportunists’ PR campaign is so successful that we have
even come to refer to these manufacturers of global inequality, waste, and
disease as “job creators” when the jobs they create serve only to gild their
own lilies, not to serve the families, communities, or environments in which we
live. It is in their interest to keep us fighting amongst ourselves. The less
united we are, the more we have to struggle, the less time we have leftover to
think about where we’re headed.

So here we are, a good ways down the road the über opportunists have
laid out for us. We are all looking around as a global society, all coming to
the realization that we’ve been duped. Collectively, we know we must stop going
down this road…but how, when we’ve come to rely so heavily on the system that
the über opportunists have created? How, when an entire culture is structured
around consumption, inefficiency, and waste – and when so many of us rely on
the flawed system for our livelihoods – can we suddenly change course?

There are no easy answers. Realizing that there is a problem is a
critical first step. The next one is to correctly identify it. Many of us can
see for ourselves, without any additional scientific evidence, that pollution
is a major cause of ill health. Toxins in our air, food, and water cause cancer
and a host of other diseases. Whether or not humans are changing the climate,
it’s very easy to understand that humans are causing pollution, and pollution
is making us sick…not “maybe”, not in 5 years or 100 years – NOW.

Who is to blame – the über opportunists who are the architects of
the current system? The people who unwittingly (or not) build and maintain the
system? It doesn’t really matter. What matters now is that we hone in on the
solution…

The obvious but rarely articulated solution – impeccable environmental
stewardship – isas complex as the problem, and strategies
for its achievement will be as diverse as every single individual who participates
in it. It is a tragic irony that willingness to join in the solution is
inversely proportional to the amount one is contributing to the problem.

Another critical obstacle to the immediate implementation of this
solution is a fundamental sense of alienation from nature that has been
intensifying since the 17th century when people first began to study
the world through the lens of the telescope and microscope. These marvelous tools
lent early scientists a profound sense of separation from their subjects.
Suddenly the world was broken into parts that could be deciphered using
mathematics, physics, astronomy, and biology. We have been slowly forgetting
that we were once part of nature, that we can study ecosystems using math, but
the environment is not math – it is us.

Until we come to the collective, visceral realization that by harming
nature we are doing very direct harm to ourselves, all the data in the world –
including dramatic images on the TV news or even right outside our window –
will do little to move us to action. Before enough of us can become inspired to
participate in impeccable environmental stewardship on the scale necessary to
recover from the damage already done, we’ll need to remember that we are
nature.

Let’s just drop all the numbers for a while and take in the smell of
a blade of grass or the sound of a cricket. Please hurry - we don’t have much
time.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Here in the United States, whether we look to the language used amongst ourselves, in the media, or by politicians, we may find that our standard method of communication is based on rhetoric – a style of argument that relies on a set of distinctly isolated viewpoints, with each view-holder applying a range of persuasive techniques in an effort to prevail over a perceived opponent.

As we navigate our way into increasingly fragile ecological and social conditions unfolding around the world, however, another lesser-known approach with roots in ancient Greek, European, and Asian thought may be worth revisiting.

In stark contrast to the goal of rhetoric – to win an argument at all costs with all forms of manipulation (including willful dishonesty) on the table – the goal of dialectic is to earnestly expand overall understanding of a situation and the conditions that surround it.

It is not surprising that dialectic is so little-known and little-understood in contemporary culture; throughout the course of history the term has been appropriated by different people for different purposes. Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx each developed their own signature varieties. If we could get all of these thinkers in a room together to engage in a dialectical discussion about the definition of dialectic, they may or may not agree on at least two basic tenets: 1) participants in a dialectic dialog understand that reality and our perception of it is in a constant state of flux, therefore definitive conclusions may not be necessary 2) apparent paradoxes and contradictions are identified and embraced as inherently interdependent conditions whenever possible (cases in point: the notion of “light” ceases to be meaningful without darkness by which to compare it; each of us is simultaneously an individual and part of a society).

Throughout history, forms of dialectic reasoning have been applied to discussions of a wide range of political, philosophical, spiritual, and scientific matters. While horns are locked and the clock ticks away on all manner of pressing social and environmental issues, I am suggesting that now is a fitting moment to evaluate the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of prevailing mechanisms for the exchange of ideas, and develop a more modern, appropriate, efficient, and constructive paradigm.

A new dialectic method has revolutionary potential. Transparency in communication is a radical act. The powers of obfuscation, confusion, and polarization are wielded with great skill by those who seek to suppress and control, often inadvertently drawing in even those with an earnest interest in clarity. Dialectic technique is an antidote, a way of dissolving veils of calculated deception to reveal the inner workings of an underlying reality.

A dialectic method would be applied like a scientific method especially for communication and distillation of understanding. Like the scientific method, it would be taken for granted that any practitioner who wished to be recognized by his or her peers as a clear, principled communicator would be obliged to employ it.

In order for the dialectic method to work effectively, a few parameters would need to be established at the outset. All participants must understand that the primary goal of the dialectic method is to pool knowledge and compare and contrast differing viewpoints on a matter for the purpose of deepening overall understanding. Unlike forms of debate in which one side attempts to demonstrate the superiority of a singular view over an opposing one by any means available (including emotional persuasion not based in reason), those willing to engage in a new dialectic favor logic, analytical proof, and rational deduction. Those who participate in dialectic discourse recognize that all conditions are in a continuous state of flux, and therefore definitive resolution may not be possible.

A preliminary outline of steps in a new DIALECTIC METHOD:

1. Establish the matter to be considered.

2. Identify and define abstract or ambiguous terminology and concepts.

3. Acknowledge the existence of apparent contradiction, paradox, and nuance.

4. Determine commonalities and points of connection.

5. Reevaluate the matter in light of information gleaned through elucidation of both paradox and connection.

6. Develop and implement solutions based on a refined understanding of the matter at hand. If further clarification is desired, begin again at step 1.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

July
4, 2012 – Independence Day offers a prime opportunity to reflect on one of the
great paradoxes of contemporary American culture: independence and
interdependence are not, as is commonly assumed, mutually exclusive concepts.

We
are not either self-reliant,
autonomous agents or cooperative,
interconnected beings. Clearly, we are both. Paradoxically, we are
simultaneously individuals and members
of a society. Our freedom to be independent is not only not hindered by our willingness to act in cooperative, altruistic,
compassionate ways – rather, it is
enhanced.

Life,
liberty, and happiness are the products of true freedom. Most of us know from
first-hand experience that sensations of happiness and contentment rarely stem
from selfish acts; on the contrary, the most profound joy comes most often from
acts of generosity and caring.

Indeed,
as a society it would benefit us to become more independent and self-sufficient
in many ways – the more food, energy, and financially independent we can become
as individuals, the stronger we become as people, communities, and as a nation.

Here
in the US the words freedom and independence are so often coupled with the
romanticized American idea of the “rugged individual”. We are taught from an
early age that we are separate from our neighbors and our environment, that to
achieve success we must compete, and that the only success that matters is
financial success.

Now
is a good time to ask ourselves: have these principles led us to become healthy,
happy people? Are we achieving the kind of wealth we have been striving for?
Are we truly free in a society that has a different, far more lenient set of
laws for the wealthy? Would we be freer and therefore more independent if we
could choose paths that diverge from the limited ones advocated by the
powers-that-be?

The
beauty of our society is that we have the freedom to make choices that result
in greater health and contentment for ourselves, our families, and our planet.
Sadly, so few of us exercise these freedoms, in part because we have not been
invited to embrace the paradox that to become the most profoundly free we must
become profoundly interdependent.